Forensic Anthropology Population Data Evaluation of frontal sinus and skull measurements using spiral CT scanning: An aid in unknown person identification Asmaa T. Uthman a, *, Natheer H. AL-Rawi b , Ahmed S. Al-Naaimi c , Ahmed S. Tawfeeq d , Enas H. Suhail a a Department of Oral Diagnosis, College of Dentistry, Baghdad University, Iraq b Department of Oral & Craniofacial Health Science, University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates c Department of Community Medicine, Baghdad University, Iraq d Department of Radiology, Tikrit University, Iraq 1. Introduction The identification of human remains is one of the most essential aspects of forensic medicine. Scientific identification of human remains might be accomplished by fingerprint, dental, anthropo- logical, genetic or radiological examinations [1]. Radiological identification still has a very important place in forensic medicine, particularly in the absence of comparative DNA samples and fingerprints. It involves the comparison of ante- mortem radiographs, usually performed for clinical reasons, with post-mortem radiographs taken solely for the identification of specific, individualizing structures [2]. Discrimination of most of the people by using simple features and applying pattern matching for the remaining ones is seen logical as an algorithm [3]. Morphological features depicted on radiographs must comply with two requirements in order to be of forensic identification value: First the feature has to be unique to the individual and second it has to remain stable over time despite ongoing life processes [4]. Many parts of the skeleton can be used for identification of a person, however the most reliable parts of the skeleton for identification are those which are anatomically variable or which do not exhibit change due to trauma, illness or surgical intervention [5,6]. Frontal sinus has great variability and its structure does not change after the age of 20 years except for very rare occurrences as fractures, tumors or severe infections [7,8,9,10]. The anatomy of the frontal sinus remains stable throughout the course of life until old ages when gradual pneumatization can occur from atrophic changes [11]. Uniqueness of radiographic Forensic Science International 197 (2010) 124.e1–124.e7 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 5 June 2009 Received in revised form 12 September 2009 Accepted 21 December 2009 Available online 22 January 2010 Keywords: Frontal sinus Skull measurements Gender Spiral CT scanning Forensic anthropology population data ABSTRACT The present study was undertaken to test a simple system for the identification of unknown bodies using spiral CT images of frontal sinus and other skull measurements among selected Iraqi sample. Ninety patients (45 males and 45 females) with age range from 20 to 49 years were selected in this study. Three features and two groups of measurements of frontal sinus and three skull dimensions were obtained from the CT images. Three basic features were F (presence or absence of frontal sinus), S (septum) and S (scalloping). Measurements selected for the study were frontal sinus width, height and anteroposterior length. In addition to measurements of total width, the distance between the highest points of the two sinuses, the distance between the highest points of each sinus to its maximum lateral limit. Skull measurements included; maximum skull length, prostio-bregmatic height and maximum skull width. All data were subjected to a descriptive and discriminative analysis using the SPSS (Version 17.0). The pre-post comparison (number of discordant items) resulted in 95% accurately predicted perfect match for intra-examiner calibration and 90% accurately predicted perfect match for inter-examiners calibration and the result for one discordant item was 5% for intra-examiner calibration and 10% for inter-examiners calibration. The discriminative analysis showed that the ability of the frontal sinus to identify gender was 76.9%, adding the skull measurements to the frontal sinus measurements gave a higher overall classification accuracy for gender (85.9%). Frontal sinus measurements are valuable method in differentiating gender. Adding skull measurements to the frontal sinus measurements can significantly improve accuracy of gender determination using discriminant analysis. CT based films can provide valuable and precise measurements not only for frontal sinus but even for the whole skull that cannot be approached by other means. ß 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +9647706287068. E-mail address: asmaatahseen69@yahoo.com (A.T. Uthman). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Forensic Science International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/forsciint 0379-0738/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2009.12.064